Several of today's most popular computer game platforms (e.g., XBOX 360, PS3, etc.) implement leaderboards to establish a ranking system for users of their devices. For example, for a particular game title, all users of that game may be ranked according to certain criteria including: best score by game mode, best overall score, wins/losses, total features unlocked, etc. This allows users to compare their performance to other users under similar settings.
However, an issue arises when determining sample size for establishing leaderboards. Currently, gaming platforms are set up to use leaderboards that rank all users who have played a particular game title under similar settings. Such leaderboards do not enable a user to rank himself against a smaller subset of users. Specifically, such leaderboards do not allow a user to determine his rank in relation to his area (e.g., city, county, state, etc.).
There are some types of location-based leaderboards. However, these location-based leaderboards may just grab the closest few, e.g., 10 or 100, other users around a given user's location to provide a sampling instead of cold-hard ranking of the type one would obtain with a traditional leaderboards.
It is within this context that embodiments of the present invention arise.